Monday Musings – Why All the Cops?

Have you ever noticed that MM romance is thick with cops as heroes? I wonder why that is? Maybe it’s because I gravitate toward mystery/suspense stories and it’s natural in that genre for one of the main characters to be a cop. But there are so many other roles a strong hero can play. And an amateur sleuth can be a ton of fun! Which is why, in my Hoale Construction Mysteries series, I made one hero a construction business owner and the other a movie actor. It may seem a strange pairing but it works. While it’s always useful to have a cop on the fictional payroll, so to speak, the cop in my series is an accessory character, which comes in handy when my amateurs need somebody to clean up the mess they’ve made with their sleuthing. hehehe

The other reason I chose such different roles for my main characters is that I just like to be different. No following the crowd for me! In fact, one reviewer said this of me as my alter ego: “Author Sam Cheever doesn’t do boring. Sam Cheever doesn’t do ordinary.” I smiled when I read this, because that reviewer gets me. I don’t like to do what everybody else is doing. That is boring. I like reading and writing unique stories with out-of-the-ordinary characters. In my opinion, characters who are cops have become the vampires and werewolves of paranormal fiction, which is not good. While still popular, it’s getting harder and harder to come up with a unique premise using vampires and werewolves.

So let’s hear it for cute, self-deprecating construction guys and sexually confused Hollywood actors! Trust me, their pairings are just as incendiary. And their exploits are twice the fun!